"To answer a question a few pages back on classic movies that became broadway musicals and then successful movie musicals--
Off the top of my head, how about SWEET CHARITY (from Nights of Cabiria)?
HAIRSPRAY?
And best of all, MY FAIR LADY? (Lerner's ending is frankly based on the film of Pygmalion.)"
All of the following were adaptations of plays, novels or memoirs which were films now considered classics (at least by some) before they were musicals on stage and then, successfully (in some cases debatable?), on screen.
CHICAGO (Roxie Hart with Ginger Rogers, a nominal classic)
THE KING AND I (Anna and the King with Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison)
OLIVER! (David Lean's acclaimed film with Alec Guinness)
CAROUSEL (Fritz Lang's Liliom with Charles Boyer)
WEST SIDE STORY (EXTREMELY LOOSELY - Cukor's R&J with Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer; Shearer giving one of the worst film performances of all time)
KISMET (Dieterle's film with Colman and Dietrich; although I'm not sure if the movie of the musical was at all a success - I tend to not think so but I'm including it anyway)
MAMMA MIA (inspired by BUONA SERA, MRS. CAMPBELL, which had already been made into the unsuccessful Stein/Lerner stage musical CARMELINA with Georgia Brown)
HELLO, DOLLY (The Matchmaker with Booth, MacLaine and Perkins, to the extent the movie was considered a success)
CABARET (if one considers I AM A CAMERA with Julie Harris, Laurence Harvey and Shelley Winters a movie classic)
Hairspray may be the only original movie (not based on other material; Sweet Charity is based on Cabiria as you've said) which went on to be a stage musical and then a successful movie (it strains credulity to consider A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC and NINE as successes on screen).
Updated On: 5/1/12 at 11:48 AM